Evoque on long-term test

Hi all,

Thought I'd make a quick post here and say hello. I'm the editor of What Car? and the lucky custodian of our long-term Evoque. We went for a five-door Prestige Sd4 Automatic, in white with black panoramic contrast roof and 'Spirit' interior (closest to the original LRX concept's tan cabin, I reckon).

We'll be posting monthly reports on the car in the magazine, of course, and we've just started our short, weekly updates at http://bit.ly/GTwekc

I'll be popping in here quite regularly, I hope, so it'll be really interesting to see how fellow Evoque users are getting on.

Regards to all,

John

Hi, I look forward to seeing what you think of the car.

Welcome John,
It will be interesting reading your updates. Thanks

Excellent, welcome to the forum. Its a great place to discuss all things Evoque!

I'm a big fan of the car and love the ride, the looks and the interior.

Build and materials quality seem to be good but not quite on par with the Germans... by the way how is the paint coverage on your bumpers and spoiler? Seems to be one of the weak points on Fuji white cars in particular. At least two I know of have been rejected because the paint didn't properly cover the plastic.

WB

(23-03-2012 03:46pm)WB Wrote:  Excellent, welcome to the forum. Its a great place to discuss all things Evoque!

I'm a big fan of the car and love the ride, the looks and the interior.

Build and materials quality seem to be good but not quite on par with the Germans... by the way how is the paint coverage on your bumpers and spoiler? Seems to be one of the weak points on Fuji white cars in particular. At least two I know of have been rejected because the paint didn't properly cover the plastic.

WB

Hi WB,

It looks fine to me - we collected our car from alongside the original LRX in the design studio at Gaydon, so it was pretty brutal under studio lights etc. I can't say I noticed any problems with the paint job.

Looking forward to getting involved in the discussions. We've also been including our car in a pretty interesting new part of our test procedure that will be rolled out in a few weeks' time. I think the results will be of interest to all Evoque owners - and I'll be sure to post them here when they're available.

For what it's worth, our car is currently at around 1100 miles and the trip computer has nudged up from 28.9mpg at collection (it had around 400 on the clock, because it's a press office car) to 32.6 as of this morning.

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(23-03-2012 03:42pm)peet Wrote:  Welcome John,
It will be interesting reading your updates. Thanks

Hi Peet. Is that your car in your Avatar? We came *so* close to having a Mauritius Blue one but there were complications in the ordering process for us (we go through the press office) so it ended up being quicker to go for white (which still photographs well, a key factor). We still ended up ordering last June for delivery, er, two weeks ago, mind you - before anyone says the press jumped the queue!

Regards to all,

John

(23-03-2012 03:46pm)WB Wrote:  by the way how is the paint coverage on your bumpers and spoiler? Seems to be one of the weak points on Fuji white cars in particular. At least two I know of have been rejected because the paint didn't properly cover the plastic.

LR really would be remiss if they let a 'Friday night' car out to What Car! For a true test, What Car should buy one incognito, 'mystery shopper' style!

(Looking forward to the updates, by the way, and it was nice of you to let us know about this, thanks!)

John,

Looking forward to hearing what you think of the car. I have a simial spec car, see my sig.

We are all a bit biased here since we already put our money in the hands of LR to get one. So please be gently on us

(23-03-2012 04:06pm)Donny Dog Wrote:  LR really would be remiss if they let a 'Friday night' car out to What Car! For a true test, What Car should buy one incognito, 'mystery shopper' style!

(Looking forward to the updates, by the way, and it was nice of you to let us know about this, thanks!)

You'd be surprised, actually. Many magazines have had problems with long-termers over the years, including some from Land Rover (I know too many stories about full-size Range Rovers breaking down, for example!). Mags often get early cars, straight from the launch, which can bring problems of its own.

In the case of Evoque, none of the magazines got its car early; we've all had to wait until the new registrations.

Hope this clears this up - and great to see there's such a lively forum for debate about the Evoque here. I'm going to be a regular visitor, I can tell...

Welcome to the forum John, we wait with baited breath to see your findings.
My car is one of the earliest Evoques to be delivered - apart from poor wind noise isolation/insulation on both doors it has been faultless.

Welcome John, Seen from your magazine you were testing one so be good to see the progress.

Mines been fantastic after initial build issues requiring a new Front Bumper and Gear Knob Replacement

Shame you didn't want to do an article on the serious rust issues I have on My Mazda, having taken it right to the MD of Mazda UK, I wrote to your helpdesk.